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Nintendo Spokesman Talks Next-Gen and MS
Thanks to GamesIndustry.biz for an article outlining comments made by Nintendo VP of sales and marketing Reggie Fils-Aime. His comments confirm that Nintendo's next console will release around the same time as the PS3, and bashed MS for rushing to the next console generation. "Our focus is this: we will bring Revolution to the marketplace roughly at the same time as the competition," Fils-Aime told US website IGN. "We are driving our timetables based on what we believe Sony will do."
What is Microsoft's motivation here anyway. I mean... Right now all they can really boast about over the PS2 is that they have a years worth of hardware advancement better graphics, and even that isn't helping the bottom line. If they come out way ahead with the next generation machines and Sony maintains it's development lineup strength, they won't even have better graphics to boast about in the next generation. All you have to do to see that being first isn't what makes you successful is to look at the Dreamcast.
The only think I can think of is that perhaps they're still losing money on each Xbox they sell, so the pressure is on to get something with lower manufacturing costs out the door...
What happened to bravado [...] they once had?
Bravado doesn't earn profits, whereas their current business model rakes in the cash.
quote from the link:
speaking at the ELSPA Game Summit in London last June, former Nintendo Europe boss David Gosen said that "in every cycle, some manufacturer not profiting from the current cycle is eager to kick-start the next one..."
the signs are there:
M$ tried to steal the market by being the first cutting the price on their console Xbox, and now they're going for a head start to steal the nextgen console market..
IMO, aside from HALO, xbox doesn't have much to offer (pls no flaming,xboxers).. since the start, they jumped into a highly competitive market that needs carefully precised timing of release & strategy.
The way I see it, in global terms PS3 will have a breezy launch with slight competition from Nintendo and even less from M$
Think about it. In the 8-Bit days, the NES came out after the Sega Master System and Atari systems.
The 16-bit days, the SNES waited until after both the Sega Genesis and NEC's Turbografix-16 came out.
The 32/64-bit days, they waited to bring out the N64 long after the PSX and Sega Saturn. The same thing occurred with the Gamecube arriving just after the PS2 and XBox.
Nintendo likes to sit back and see what the competion comes out with and then trumps it shortly after.
Later to market isn't always a bad thing.
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
MS releasing the xbox2 so early is a slap in the face to thier customers. With the PS2, and DS, they commited to a long product lifecycle, giving thier customers more years of value and game development, while with the xboxii it's imho too early. I think nintendo tested the waters earlier with leaked reports of an early gamecube successor, but backed off because it wasn't well received EOLing the GC so early, but MS just doesn't seem to care about thier loyal customers of the current console.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
Nintendo is setting up some of the most original hardware I have ever seen. Me and my friends are making a hobby of thinking up things that were never before possible before the Nintendo DS. The possibilites are truly endless and amazing. I predict, and hope, that the Revolution will act as a hub for Nintendo DSes.
Here is my vision:
16 DSes can linke wirelessly. If the revolution can link to all those DSes then you can do this. Have a game with four teams, four players per team. The big screen attached to the revolution has the readout for the entire game, each player has two screens on their DS to do their personal bit.
Even better. If the revolution has a net connection. Then you can have two revolutions connect over the net or via lan cable. Two teams of 16 can fight each other. One team in one room in one country, the other team on the other side of the world. The teams can communicate with microphone that plugs into the ds. The idea of a game like this is the best thing ever. Imagine, online teamplay gaming without even a possibility of cheating!
Nintendo is making the hardware which makes this possible. But I am worried they will not make the software that takes full advantage of the possibilities. At least Warp Pipe looks like they are moving in that direction.
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They still do have the bravado and innovation, they just know not to let it get the better of them. They did have more overall public bravado when they were unchallenged in the console market, but heavy competition changed that. This contrasts with the handheld market, where Nintendo still dominates (and is acting with the bravado you speak of by stealing all of Sony's PSP thunder with the DS).
The situation is reversed in the console market, and Nintendo knows they have to play their cards carefully. Look what happened to Sega: they released an innovative console well ahead of Sony, but Sony dissuaded people from purchasing it, making unfulfillable promises about the Playstation 2 (Toy Story in real time, etc.). (This is not to say that Sega didn't screw up either.) Nintendo surely saw this happen, and knows not to make the same mistakes. Sony is the dominating leader in the console market, and Nintendo is wise to plan carefully, and to keep that plan close to the vest.
Where did that comment come from?
I really hate you Nintendo bashers.
NES was definitely better than the SMS and Atari.
SNES was unquestionably stronger than Genesis.
I'm sure some could argue the N64 was better than the PSX, but using cartridges really hurt the N64. I think the N64 was a weaker system because of it.
The Gamecube has much better hardware than the PS2, but weaker hardware than the Xbox. Although again, I'm sure some could argue that the GC's hardware has been put to better use.
For the record I have all three consoles. My Gamecube gets the most play time, followed by my PS2, then the Dreamcast, and finally my Xbox... which I use to play emulated SNES on.
Uhh... no. Speaking from the hardware perspective, they've had some superior features since at least the N64 days.
The N64 was far more powerful than anything else on the market before the Dreamcast. Sadly, the decision to go with cartridges more than balanced out this otherwise superior hardware.
The Gamecube hardware is on average as powerful as the X-Box, being better in some aspects and weaker in others. It's also almost universally better than the PS2.
I can't really speak for consoles before the N64, as I didn't really start following the hardware before then. But really, I don't know where you're getting your information if you think they traditionally have the weakest hardware.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
I really doubt it's an issue of what Nintendo can or can't afford, given that they're swimming in cash at the moment. Rather it is an attempt to judge what release window would give them the biggest bang for the buck. And Sony certainly didn't have any problems admiting they needed to play "catch-up" to the Dreamcast back before the PS2 came out, and they did a great (if slimey) job of it and look where they are now.
No company survives by ignoring the competition, and if Nintendo tried to deny that they're currently in second place in the console wars you'd just say they were going to fail because they were insular and self-deluded and couldn't adapt to the changing times.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
It's been known that the Revolution will be backwards compatible. This will help Nintendo, especially with MS's move to ditch it, as you said. I really feel as if MS isn't going to have much of a presence in the next-gen of consoles. Nintendo will hopefully have a bigger presence, and Sony will still be up there...
Then I guess Genesis developers just sucked.
All SNES games ran faster/looked better than their Genesis counterpart.
Microsoft is. If they are aiming at Sony, they are going to miss.
Nintendo may call its new console a "Revolution", but it's not a real Revolution until Konami ports its flagship Bemani title.
exactly - nintendo is NOT going to go the direction of the 50-100 million dollar games, which are becoming expected budgets for ps3 and xbox2 titles - the next generation is exponentially increasing development budgets and time...
nintendo has done the math, they know that sony & microsoft can (and seem to be willing to) develop themselves to death and still not produce good games...it's only a matter of time before the return on investment simply does not add up.
you spend $50 million (HL2, Sims2, etc) to make a game, how many do you have to sell before it's considered a success for the company?
usually investors (stockholders, etc) want an 'increase' in their returns, not barely breaking even...
Gekido's Lair
I don't think Microsoft expects to make a decent profit on Xbox until Xbox 3. The reason they're going early is that they don't want to be in the same position as they were the last time around, where the launched when the PS2 was already firmly embedded. Of course, they also want to avoid the curse of the Dreamcast where everybody waits for the more-powerful Playstation that is coming along.
So - I don't think they'll be expecting to make a profit, especially at the beginning. They need to make the Xbox 2 at least as powerful as the PS3 (and preferably more powerful), and launching it earlier than the PS2 is going to mean that at first they'll be taking a huge hit on each console and will probably have to sell it at below cost.
However, you've got to look at the alternative - they certainly can't launch later than the PS3 - that would suicidal. The PS2 has such a big mindshare that they have to launch first - I imagine they hope that by the time the PS3 is coming out with its launch titles, the Xbox 2 will be getting its first second-generation titles, and that will be enough to win over some of Sony's customers...
Basically, Nintendo got nervous about what Sony was doing (The SNES CD-Rom extension). It seemed like Sony intended to use their deal with Nintendo to take over the video game industry and make Nintendo dependant on them. Of course, Sony did end up taking control of the video game industry, but Nintendo remained an independant company.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
"Please don't try to explain how the PS2 is actually a supercomputer but developers haven't been able to unlock its huge potential."
Thank you for saying that! As the happy owner of a GC, I am very fed up with annoying PS2ers going on about the brilliant architecture of their machine, but when faced with the fact that overall while the PS2 is indeed a nice system, cross-platform games on the GC and XBox just tend to look better, they then go on to denounce pathetic devs who are incaple of realizing its true brilliance, and harp for the day when the programmers will finally catch up the PS2. Please. Before that would happen, guess what, PS3 will be out, and people will stop developping for it.
Alright, enough ranting for now...
You're talking fill rates while I'm talking the texturing and mapping abilities of the consoles.
The PS2 can't bump map well, can't mip map well, can't normal map at all, etc. When we talk of textures in games and such, it mainly involves the ability to use different maps and effects and such that allow for games to look better. The PS2, in this regard, simply can't handle it.
Actually, it's 4MB of VRAM, but that's compared to the gamecube's 1MB of VRAM.
So I overestimated the PS2's VRAM, but you are assuming the embedded RAM on the Flipper GPU is the only VRAM the GC has. The 1 MB you speak of is simply texture buffering RAM, embedded into the GPU, and is in addition to a 2 MB Z-buffer that is embedded into the GPU as well. Like the Xbox, though, the GC can use it's main system RAM for graphics as well.
Technically, the GC and Xbox have no dedicated VRAM set aside just for main graphics memory, the PS2 does, and only uses that VRAM for graphics, and doesn't utilize any of the rest of the system memory for graphics ability.
The gamecube's architecture allows it to get more "free" special effects, but the PS2 has much more raw power.
The GC has a faster CPU, faster GPU, and more main system RAM (which is also more efficient RAM than the PS2's).
Your source of IGN for the GC's max polygon perfomrance is the only site that seems to magically have the numbers that Nintendo has never released to the press, and game developers would have NDAs against giving it out unless Nintendo gave them out, so I call them more of IGN's bullshit.
And, as has been said before, raw power alone isn't enough. Somemone might be able to put a F-16's engine in a Pinto for tons of raw power, but it won't mean shit if the Pinto can't move under the weight of the engine.
And, as per your other comment: if you aren't a gamer, why are you so adamant about touting the PS2's raw power? It's been shown that the PS2 is the WEAKEST console in this gen many times over. Hell, AnadTech showed it before, as has Tom's Hardware, and other reputable sources; which I'll say I can trust more than you and your listening to IGN's magic numbers on things that have never been released to the press/public.